Data are transmitted from a secondary station to a master station along a segmented path, wherein two contiguous segments are respectively connected by a node and wherein the path has at least three segments with at least two nodes. The data from the secondary station are split into N data packets, where N is the number of nodes. The data packets are marked distinguishably, each marking corresponding to a particular node on the path. Each data packet along the path is forwarded only to the adjacent node or adjacent station. Each node checks to determine whether the marking of the packet corresponds to the respective node. If so, data from the node are added to the data packet. The data packets are collected in the master station. The data transmission is concluded successfully if all N data packets with data from all N nodes are present.